Jennifer Lawrence excels in Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games. Photograph: Murray Close

In the pantheon of subjects tailor-made to set alarms bell ringing, the spectre of kids killing kids for public entertainment presses all the right/wrong buttons. Constructed as a cross between Twilightand Battle Royale, with a hint of Series 7: The Contendersthrown in for good measure, The Hunger Games (2012, Lionsgate, 12) does a pretty impressive job of taking the bleakest possible dystopian fantasy set-up and reimagining it as a tweenage love triangle with a kick-ass heroine and a massive young adult fanbase.

In a totalitarian near-future, male and female youngsters from 12 potentially rebellious districts are forced to compete in a most dangerous game in which supplies are the prize and only one can survive. Presented to the public as disposable pop idols, each "tribute" is trained and manicured before being sent off into the woods to either kill or be killed. Meanwhile, the terrifyingly coiffed residents of the corpulent Capitol city feast their eyes on carnage dressed up as emotional pornography, replete with the all too familiar trappings of contemporary reality TV.

Co-scripted by blockbuster novelist Suzanne Collins and directed by safe pair of hands Gary Ross, this updating of the themes of Nigel Kneale's still epochal 1968 TV play The Year of the Sex Olympics stays close enough to its source to keep the hordes of teenage readers (who, like the Twi-hards, don't take deviation lightly) onside while still reining things in enough to achieve an age-appropriate certificate. Rated PG-13 in the US, this was trimmed by the BBFC for a 12 in UK cinemas, although Blu-ray editions present the film in its original uncut 15-rated form.

Jennifer Lawrence, who made such an impression in the nightmarishly melancholic Winter's Bone, is brilliantly cast as Katniss Everdeen, a classic "final girl" whose survival depends not on brutality but on a familiar mix of ingenuity, resourcefulness and (most importantly) moral superiority. Amid the impressive supporting cast, Stanley Tucci excels as a tombstone-toothed TV presenter, Donald Sutherland slimes as the repellent President Snow (his "Letters from the Rose Garden" featurette is an extras highlight), and Woody Harrelson is strangely sympathetic as Katniss's drunken mentor. It all adds up to a surprisingly powerful first instalment that subsequent episodes (the books come as a trilogy) are going to struggle to match.

From the hard-nosed wallop of Jennifer Lawrence's warrior princess to the winsome worryings of Greta Gerwig's over-anxious and pretty-prim college girl Violet Wister. Whit Stillman's ultra-arch Damsels in Distress (2012, Sony, 12) has proved something of an audience-splitter, with even the director's most hardcore fans unsure whether to smile or scream at the endless kookiness that walks the thin line between quirky and irksome. Personally I opted to smile at Gerwig's controlling nostalgist who attempts to right the depressing wrongs of the world with a mixture of charming fragrances and musical dance numbers. Tutoring new fish Lily (Analeigh Tipton) in the ways of distinguishing between a "dreamboat" and a "playboy operator", Violet's group of borderline sociopathic good eggs are classic Stillman fare – uptight, offbeat, relentlessly eccentric and essentially unhinged. That this is not a patch on Metropolitan goes without saying; Stillman is unlikely ever to breach that critical high-water mark. More disappointingly, this fails to build on the edgy promise of The Last Days of Disco, which for my money remains his best and most underrated film. Still, there's more than enough to enjoy for anyone whose teeth haven't been set on edge, not least the putative new dance craze, which is explained in full for enjoyment in one's own home.

The classic Nicholas Sparks hero is a man of few words who looks good with his shirt off, gets on well with animals and is most at home sanding down the hull of a boat, preferably while bathed in a magic-hour, early-evening glow. In The Lucky One (2012, Warner, 12), war veteran Zac Efron ticks all the boxes (good hair, monosyllabic, has dog, fixes gutters and – inevitably – boats), while his rival (paunchy, drinks alone, no pets, rubbish in the water) ticks none. The plot is daft: having escaped death on the battlefield, a marine tracks down an unnamed girl in a lucky-charm photo, but on finding her is unable to explain why he's come, thus creating an unspoken secret that remains buried until it's too late to tell her because by then they've fallen in blah blah blah…

It's no secret that I love Zac Efron, which may explain why I feel so charitable towards what is plainly formulaic guff of the highest order. But Shine director Scott Hicks does his best to invest the proceedings with the teensiest amount of grit and a healthy dose of good humour, even as the dozy denouement pushes everything over the edge. Top marks go to Blythe Danner, who has an absolute riot of a time pulling faces over the top of a pair of strategically perched spectacles and generally chewing the scenery as the heroine's ever-so-slightly saucy mum.